On RWAs and Institutional-Grade Assets: The Case of OpenEden

Market Perspective

RWA tokenisation has surged to $29B market cap in 2025, growing by over 380% in the last three years. Surely worth celebrating, but to put things in perspective, this only represents just 0.0116% of the global $250T asset base.

Growth forecasts for this market range from $2T (McKinsey) to $16T (Boston Consulting Group) by 2030, a sign of both the massive opportunity and the uncertainty around the adoption trajectory. With trillions of dollars in RWAs projected to move onchain, only providers meeting the institutional standard will be able to capture this growth.

This report seeks to use OpenEden as a case study to provide an understanding of the "institutional-grade" product requirements. To achieve this, we will begin by examining both the opportunities and the structural frictions in the RWA sector, followed by an analysis of the main asset classes and providers.

The RWA Opportunity

This section provides an overview of the RWA opportunity, divided across asset classes, providers, and blockchain networks, serving as a foundation for the subsequent sections.

Together with stablecoins, Real-world assets (RWA) are the fastest-growing DeFi narrative of 2025.

Onchain tokenisation experiments were registered as early as 2018, enabled by Ethereum’s smart contracts.

Despite rapid growth, RWA tokenisation has been previously constrained by several bottlenecks:

• Regulatory fragmentation across countries

• Infrastructure gaps in terms of settlement, custody

• Technology and Security risks (e.g. smart contract risks, bridge hacks)

In fact, the sector experienced its biggest growth in 2025. In less than a year, the total value of onchain RWAs doubled from $15B in January to over $29B in September, with a CAGR of ~43% projected until 2029.

However, it’s essential to note that this did not occur in isolation. Rather than a self-standing development, this is the result of years of positioning and infrastructure development, resulting in an environment now ready to work at scale.

In particular, the last couple of years have completely changed the economic and regulatory climate surrounding tokenised RWAs.

The economic landscape has been redefined by a major shift in rates, following the Fed's rate hike to 5.5% in 2023. This completely changed the risk-reward profile of many onchain assets and lending protocols, prompting outflows to safer avenues such as Treasuries, which started offering higher rates.

From one day to the next, tokenised treasuries became superior risk-adjusted instruments for both onchain retail investors and DAO treasuries. Web3 players started acting accordingly: a notable example is Grove, a subDAO within Sky (previously known as MakerDAO), which allocated $1B to tokenised Treasury products.

All of this was boosted by the changing regulatory environment around RWAs and cryptocurrencies in general. Legislation such as the MiCA provided regulatory clarity around digital assets in Europe, while the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) provides a “standardised global framework for the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) in relation to crypto-asset transactions”.

In the US, Trump has made it clear that the government welcomes development in the sector, with the GENIUS Act recently approved, a significant landmark for stablecoin acceptance. Meanwhile, other countries, such as the UAE and Singapore, have continued to openly champion cryptocurrency acceptance and development in their regions.

Arguably, one of the biggest green lights for onchain RWA has been the entrance into the arena of some of the biggest players in traditional finance. The launch of funds led by household names such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton has further contributed to solidifying and legitimising the sector. BUIDL by Blackrock is now the largest RWA asset onchain, with over $2.2B in total value.

As we can observe in the table above, among the top 10 RWA assets onchain, the majority are related to US Treasuries and Commodities (in particular, gold).

The process of onchain tokenisation provides significant benefits for these institutional assets, as they are able to leverage onchain platforms to access DeFi liquidity while remaining compliant.

They can be further improved and integrated into existing opportunities (e.g. merging RWA assets with existing vault structures for yield), and provide a strong element of differentiation to rebalance crypto-native portfolios, “expanding the available opportunity set by providing access to previously unavailable asset classes through tokenisation”.

To understand the market appetite for RWA assets, we categorise them by asset type.

The majority share ($16.7B, over 60% of the sector's total market capitalisation) comprises Private Credit.

In its traditional finance form, private credit is often constrained by limitations in accessibility and distribution, with limited liquidity for secondary market transactions.

By tokenising private credit opportunities, they are made accessible to a broader public.

Examples of the most commonly used assets include lines of credit for home purchases and remodeling from Figure, and Apollo’s ACRED fund, which enables leverage looping strategies to amplify yield on yield-bearing assets - both of which offer better conditions than their traditional finance counterparts.

Following suit, we find US Treasury Debt instruments. We have already highlighted above how treasuries have contributed to the overall shift in market conditions, following their rate change to 5.5% (from the current 4.33%). It’s not a stretch to position them as the instrument that has contributed the most to institutional adoption of tokenised RWAs. These are low-risk assets backed by the US Government, with regulatory clarity and widespread adoption. Only $7.4B worth of assets are currently tokenised (a 30% share of total RWA tokenised assets), and almost 30% of this is represented by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund.

The main benefits of bringing treasuries onchain include expanding their trading hours beyond traditional markets, providing instant settlement and broader distribution, and opening up opportunities for further composability of these assets across DeFi.

In third place, we find Commodities, the majority of which is composed of Real Estate, with a value of $2B, representing less than 7.5% of the total. This is largely due to the regulatory complexity, with differences across jurisdictions, and the inherent trust issues associated with the nature of the assets. However, this is one of the areas with the most long-term potential and the highest growth in the year (over 200%).

Institutional alternative funds also hold similar value ($1.9B), encompassing venture capital, private equity, private credit, and hedge funds.

Last but not least, we find non-U.S. government debt (with the most volume on China digital money market funds), holding $1.33B in value, Stocks ($520M), and Corporate Bonds ($265M).

It comes as no surprise that the majority of RWA TVL (about 59%) is on Ethereum, where institutions have been experimenting with onchain tokenisation as early as 2019.

Aside from Ethereum, several Layer 2 (L2s) have been experimenting with RWAs. ZK sync leads with over $2.4B, the majority of which is in private credit.

Polygon follows with $1.1B, the majority of which is in commodities (exceeding $500M) and corporate bonds, and Aptos with $700M, focusing on private credit offerings in emerging markets.

Particularly noteworthy is the use of RWA as “risk-off collateral” for DAO treasuries, as pioneered by Arbitrum, which has led to the creation of a $370 million sector within the L2.

The increased adoption of RWA assets can serve as a template for the sector’s next phase of growth. This raises the question of what’s needed to penetrate this market and cater to institutional demand.

The next section delves deeper into what it takes for assets to be considered “institutional-grade”, highlighting the requirements of institutional investors and introducing how incumbents, such as OpenEden, are positioning themselves with their offerings.

Introducing OpenEden

If the RWA sector is to transition to future financial infrastructure, platforms must demonstrate five key aspects:

• Regulatory clarity

• Independent validation

• Institutional custody

• Transparency

• Composability

Let us highlight the importance of each of those, using the case study of OpenEden.

OpenEden is an RWA protocol focused on tokenising US Treasuries, as an opportunity for onchain investors who seek “low-risk” liquid investment solutions.

They stand out among incumbents as one of the few tokenised funds to have received an S&P AA+f Fund Credit Quality and S1+ Fund Volatility Ratings, highlighting how they “view this money market fund allocation as complementary to the U.S. treasury bill holdings, enhancing portfolio liquidity without compromising credit quality”.

They also received an A-bf bond fund rating from Moody's, one of the most important agencies for setting risk benchmarks for assets.

Since its launch in 2023, OpenEden has accrued over $300M in TVL, becoming “the largest issuer of tokenised US Treasuries in Asia and Europe”.

OpenEden offers two main products, TBILL and USDO. In the next section, we delve into them and benchmark them against the five key institutional requirements outlined above.

TBILL

Through the TBILL token, the OpenEden’s Treasury Bills Vault ("TBILL Vault"), gives exposure to short-dated (less than 3 months maturity) US treasury bills.

Every TBILL token is backed 1:1 by short-dated U.S. T-Bills and US dollars. The value of the TBILL token is expected to increase, reflecting the yield generated by the underlying T-bills.

TBILL provides crypto-native accredited investors with the opportunity to earn low-risk returns on their stablecoins. As Treasury bills have been one of the staples of offchain investing, OpenEden is bringing this market onchain.

One of the most important aspects when offering institutional assets is ensuring they are fully compliant. OpenEden operates through a fund fully regulated by the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Financial Services Commission (“Token Issuer”). It is independently validated as it received an

S&P AA+f Fund Credit Quality and S1+ Fund Volatility Ratings, meaning the fund meets the same standards as traditional money market funds. The custody and investment management of the asset are managed by The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), marking the first time they are managing a tokenised fund on a public blockchain, a strong signal of trust for OpenEden.

Access to the TBILL vault is permissioned and restricted to eligible investors, who receive the TBILL tokens by depositing a minimum of 100k USDC in the vault.

Once received, the TBILL tokens are held in the investors’ wallets, retaining self-custody.

Investors can redeem their tokens by joining the redemption queue, which is expected to process their orders in about 1 day.

To give an idea of the coordination required to launch these products, the TBILL Vault features:

• Token Issuer: a fund registered in the British Islands.

• Investment Manager: BNY is the investment manager and primary custodian of the underlying assets.

• Fintech Service Provider: River Labs, in this case, provides the technology required to operate the TBILL Vault.

The fund currently operates with a 0.30% annual fee and a 5 basis points (bps) fee on transactions (subscriptions and redemptions).

To boost composability across DeFi, TBILL will be integrated with Aave’s institutional-focused platform Horizon.

USDO

As part of its offering, OpenEden also features “OpenDollar” (USDO), a regulated, yield-bearing stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury bills and reverse repurchase agreements.

The token is available in two different formats:

• USDO: A daily rebasing token, the value of USDO is set at $1 to simplify yield distribution. Users’ yields are reflected in the changing balance.

• cUSDO: With a constant balance. The accruing yield is reflected in a price increase.

USDO is currently available on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Base, and is 100% backed by US Treasury bills, including TBILL, with proof of reserves available on Chainlink.

The regulatory compliance of USDO is ensured by being issued by OpenEden Digital (OED), a bankruptcy-remote segregated accounts company (SAC) officially licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA).

Similar to TBILL, minting and redemption of USDO are reserved for eligible investors who meet the following criteria:

1. Being a non-US resident

2. Minimum initial purchase of 100k USD

3. Completion of KYC

As an example of its composability, cUSDO is now integrated as “the first yield-bearing off-exchange collateral (OEC) on Binance’s Banking platform Triparty and Ceffu’s MirrorRSV.

OECs are becoming increasingly publicly available, as they safeguard collateral off-exchange, eliminate platform counterparty risks, and enhance capital efficiency, allowing users to continue earning yield on yield-bearing collateral.

Using cUSDO as OEC, institutions “can now trade on one of the world’s largest exchanges while their collateral remains safely custodied in a segregated wallet and continues to earn yield”.

Benchmarking TBILL and USDO against Institutional Requirements

This section provides a practical understanding of how incumbents, such as OpenEden, have structured their products to meet institutional demand from the outset.

To do so, we benchmark TBILL and USDO against the five key institutional requirements highlighted in the section above, which we briefly introduce first.

• Regulatory Clarity: Institutional investors require clarity from a regulatory perspective, with clear jurisdictional structures and licensed providers.

• Independent Validation: TradFi assets are independently validated by Rating Agencies using standardised methods. To find traction, tokenised RWAs must align, as they cannot rely on self-reporting.

• Institutional Custody: Custody is arguably the most important aspect that institutional actors are wary of. Using established custodians can massively increase trust and simplify onboarding.

• Transparency: Onchain RWAs promise increased transparency, which has to materialise in proof-of-reserves, audits, etc.

• Composability: RWAs can unlock significant value in DeFi if they can be used as collateral, traded, or structured into new yield products.

Only when all five of these requirements are fulfilled can a product be considered institutional-grade. Failure to account for regulatory requirements, jurisdictional structure and custody will, in fact, result in immediate loss of trust and difficulties in market penetration.

Future Outlook and Conclusion

With RWA tokenisation expected to grow between 70x-100x by 2030, this growth is likely to be iterative and not linear, similar to what we have experienced now, with limited growth until the infrastructure is set for explosive growth (like in 2025). Future breakthroughs in custody, settlement, regulation and types of assets will unlock new waves of adoption and opportunities.

Among these, we expect key drivers of growth to remain around Treasuries and Money Market Funds in the short term, with private credit and real estate growing the most in the medium and long term, respectively.

OpenEden’s roadmap is closely aligned with the sector's trajectory. We can expect the EDEN token TGE at the end of September, with the snapshot already taken on September 15th.

Users will be able to receive an EDEN amount proportional to their Bill points. Interestingly enough, OpenEden has lowered vesting requirements for users with less than 10 million points to level the playing field with whales.

While the Bills points campaign is now over, the focus has now shifted towards a “pre-farm” campaign, where users can get EDEN tokens:

• Curve Stability Vault: Users can join the vault by contributing cUSDO and/or USDC to the respective liquidity pool on Curve, with EDEN emissions continuing until the vault matures on March 1st, 2026.

• Pendle YT cUSDO Stability Vault: Users deposit Pendle cUSDO YT tokens and receive EDEN emissions until vault maturity on the 20th of November 2025.

All tokens received from the vaults will be claimable on October 7th.

The EDEN token will be instrumental to ensure “long-term alignment between the protocol and its community”, across:

• Governance: xEDEN (staked EDEN) holders can vote on key issues, including the USDO and TBILL reserve strategy, Treasury and insurance fund management, Emission schedules, Product roadmap proposals, and upgrades.

• Staking: Users can stake EDEN to get xEDEN, receive staking rewards and contribute to governance

• Ecosystem Incentives: Driving both existing and future growth initiatives.

• Utility: Including fees discounts, early access, premium services, and future fee accrual

The next phase of expansion for OpenEden includes a focus on multichain expansion, as well as the addition of tokenised money market funds and an increasing range of high-yield products, with the objective of scaling beyond $1B in AUM and establishing itself as the benchmark for credible RWA tokenisation.

Follow this space for more RWA updates and news on OpenEden’s TGE and ecosystem integrations.